Madeleine suspect picture 'like an egg with hair'

A computer-generated image which police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann refuse to release to the public was described today as “an egg with hair”.

Plain-clothes detectives have been touring the Algarve village of Praia da Luz in Portugal after Madeleine’s disappearance six days ago asking shopkeepers and locals if they recognise the potential suspect.

Although the image has been shown to individuals, police have refused to release it to the public because of an information black-out on the investigation, citing strict Portuguese laws.

The investigative Policia Judiciaria (PJ) has been criticised over its handling of the case, in part because of the lack of information.

One of those shown the image was Simon Russell, 40, a half-English, half-Portuguese man who runs a video store and internet café in the resort town.

He said today that a group of four or five plain-clothes police came into his shop on Saturday afternoon and asked him if he had seen anything suspicious.

After asking him if he had seen anyone accessing suspicious websites, they took him into a back room away from the customers and discreetly slipped out the crude image asking him if he recognised the person.

He said: “They just showed me this outline which apparently gave me the impression that it had high cheekbones and a long face but other than that, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, so I call it an egg, it was an egg with hair.”

He went on: “I have heard that other people who have been interviewed have said that there were clothes involved. The police never asked me about anything to do with clothing.

“All I got was an impression of a head with hair with a side parting.

“I smiled when they showed it to me. What else could anyone do?”

He went on to say that the image was not even recognisable as an e-fit.

“It didn’t look like it had been drawn, it didn’t look like a photograph, it looked like something that had been created maybe on a computer – but there were no features.

“It was completely different from anything I have seen in the newspapers - there were no features, there were no ears.”

There were claims today that the PJ had even held back from showing the image to Portugal’s main police force, the PSP.

A PSP source told the Diario de Noticias newspaper that the PJ had failed to disclose the image to the other force until Monday – four days after Madeleine’s disappearance.

The source told the newspaper that he felt it was extremely counterproductive to have that portrait and not to pass it to other police forces or even publish it more widely.

“It is time to set aside petty pride and rivalry between police forces,” he is quoted as saying.

Madeleine has not been seen for six days since disappearing from her parents’ holiday apartment in the village while they were having dinner.

Police said they have followed up 350 different leads, interviewed 100 people and taken hundreds more calls.

They have also examined 500 apartments in the area.

But they are unable to say with certainty if Madeleine is still alive or still in the country.

Her anxious parents Gerry and Kate have been staying in an apartment just yards from where Madeleine disappeared, waiting for news.

The resort company, Mark Warner Holidays, has set up a special email address - [e-mail] – for members of the public to send messages of support.

By mid-morning today the address, which was set up yesterday afternoon, had already received 400 messages from 20 countries, including Zambia, the United States and Bahrain.